A big area stretching across big cities and big farmland has started hatching some companies with big ideas.
The Kansas City metropolitan area spreads across 15 counties and two states, Kansas and Missouri. Kansas City Missouri anchors the area with a population close to half a million out of the 2.3 million in the sprawling and still-growing area. Kansas City Kansas, the third largest city in that state, has almost 150,000 residents, and sits at the junction of the Missouri and Kansas rivers.
Latest big success story? EyeVerify, a biometric security company, exited with $100 million bucks from Ant Financial, the payment affiliate of Alibaba Holding Group. Alibaba, considered the Amazon (or bigger) of China, has the resources to buy any company anywhere. Their acquisition of EyeVerify in Kansas City in 2016 cemented KC as the home of hot startups galore.
Groups such as the Kansas City Startup Foundation and Forward/KC support, encourage, and mentor the startups. Where rivers come together, people come together. Many of those people, at least in the Kansas City area, start innovating.
C2FO
Back office accounting details get labeled “boring” immediately by almost everyone not wearing a green accountant’s eye shade. Bu C2FO jazzed up the back office by disrupting working capital management by turning it into a marketplace for buyers and sellers of approved invoices. Buyers can get their money faster, and suppliers can get paid earlier at a slightly discounted rate when they need cash in hand.
Still bored? Not when you see the funding total: $138 million in six rounds from a total of eight investors. The company started their project in early 2008 and attracted $3.6 million of Series A money in March of 2011. Venture and Series D funding of $40 million each swelled the investments in June and August of 2015. You may be bored, but smart venture capital groups seem extremely excited.
ShotTracker
Everyone knows the Internet of Things will impact lives in a variety of areas. But who knew the “things” could be basketball players? ShotTracker, that’s who. Three components make up the system: a wearable sensor tied into player shoelaces or their wrists, a sensor-optimized ball, and permanently-mounted sensors around the court. In real time, every location of players and ball for every second streams to computes or tablets.
Starting in 2013, ShotTracker moved fast and received $5 million in seed capital in October of 2016. Critical detail: some of the investors. If your startup does sports, then investors like Magic Johnson and former NBA Commissioner David Stern become the all-stars of your investor list.
Blooom
Every day, workers cringe at all the news complaining about the poor state of their retirement accounts. Have a pension? Maybe not, says doom-and-gloom financial experts. This is where Blooom and their first-ever, web-based automated retirement funds adviser comes in. The tool analyzes and gives feedback on your mix of investments, hidden fees, and future considerations.
Founded in early 2013, Blooom’s financial background makes sense when you see some of their investors. Besides some regular VC groups like TTV Capital and Gibraltar Ventures, UMB Banks and Nationwide Insurance also pitched in to the tune of $13.15 million in two rounds, October 2015 and February 2017.
Front Flip
